The Book Whisperer

jottings, musings and recommendations of an incurable bookaholic

Book Review: The Girl who Played with Fire by Steig Larsson December 11, 2009

Filed under: Crime/Mystery/Thriller,Globe Trotting,Steig Larsson — The Book Whisperer @ 9:52 pm

The second in the Millenium trology and every bit as good as the first. This is on-the-edge-of-your-seet fiction; pege-turning at its best. I cursed having to go to work, having to go to bed, hell even having to prize myself off the sofa to make a coffee, such was my desire to keep reading.

In this book, the second in the trilogy, Salander is hiding from the authorities after becoming the prime suspect in a tripple murder investigation. Blomkvist doesn’t think she did it and goes about setting up his own investigation to prove her innocence. The book is chock full of baddies, twists, turns and revelations and I can’t recommend this series highly enough.

The ending was nicely set up for the 3rd book too (which I plan to read over Christmas).

 

Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson December 11, 2009

Filed under: Crime/Mystery/Thriller,Globe Trotting,Steig Larsson — The Book Whisperer @ 9:44 pm

I loved this book and suffered a few very late nights as a consequence.

The book centres around a journalist called Blomkvist who has just been sentenced to 3 months in prison for a libelous article in his magasine Millenium against a business big-shot. After his sentencing and deciding to have a break from the magasine, he is approached by Henrick Vanger, another business man now in his 80′s with his own empire dating back generations. He hires Blomkvist to research his family to find out what happened to his 16 year old neice, Harriet, who disappeared without trace in 1966. Vanger has never got over her disappearance and he wants closure, but as Blomkvist gets to work sniffing around the various members of the Vanger family it is clear that he is not welcome.

Blomkvists unlikely partner is a strange young girl, Lisbeth Salander, who is a genious computer hacker and helps him in the investigation.

Although I will admit that it took me a good 50 pages to get into the book, once I had passed that I found myself unable to put it down. I would definitely recommend this book.

 

Book Review: Villette by Charlotte Bronte December 11, 2009

Filed under: Charlotte Bronte,The Victorians — The Book Whisperer @ 9:41 pm
Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Reader, I heart Ms. Bronte! Reading Villette was like reading a huge epic that I was so emmersed in that I walked in Lucy Snowe’s shoes, I felt what she felt. How many authors can do that to you?

Lucy Snowe is difficult to get to know at first. In fact, she is difficult to like. This is deliberate; she tells you about other people, what they think, what they feel, but precious little about herself, of whom she appears fiercely private. Only as the story unfolds does she start to let you in – I remember being surprised when she showed such tender, gentle thoughts and actions towards the sick daughter of her employer; that, I believe, was the first glimpse of emotion from Lucy and it really endeared me to her. Lucy Snowe’s name was not an accident – Bronte toyed with Lucy Frost for a while before settling on Snowe. She also allows us to see her as others do: “Crabbed and crusty” said Ginevra, a pupil at the school, and “unfeeling thing that I was” written to her in a letter. The point is, she isn’t unfeeling at all. She is lonely and trying to make her way in an unfamiliar world. Lucy’s past is only hinted at but it appears to have been an unhappy one.

Brontes prose is gorgeous, Villette is such a richly embroidered account of a young woman trying to make a life for herself in a foreign country and fighting for independence and friendship. This book isn’t a romance in the same way that Jane Eyre is. I wasn’t sure for a long time who the leading man would be (in fact he doesn’t even appear until the second half of the book). And it isn’t love at first sight, we watch it grow.

I absolutely adored this book and it is now a firm favourtie of mine.  I finally closed the book in a daze. I don’t want to give anything away, but I was not expecting what happended at the end at all. That came completely out of the blue for me.

Go ahead, indluge and enjoy!

 

Book Review: White Tiger by Aravind Adiga December 11, 2009

Filed under: Aravind Adiga,Globe Trotting — The Book Whisperer @ 9:36 pm

White Tiger by Aravind AdigaThis book will be one of those books that I will think about often. It’s not a book whose plot I can easily explain, or a book that I can easily fit into a particular genre on my shelves, but my God did it pack a powerful punch. I have hardly been able to put it down between sittings.

The books is narrated via a letter from Balram Halwai, a slum-dweller-turned-driver-turned-murderer-turned-entrepreneur, to the Chinese President before the latters’ trip to India and it is here that we follow Balram on an amazing journey through his life (I say “amazing” but undoubtedly typical of many in India). Although the slums of India and the government / police etc curruption is nothing I haven’t come across before in books or films I still found myself shocked on almost a page-by-page basis. I liked the fact that there was no real hero in this book. There are no winners in a society like this.

This book is engrossing, shocking, humbling and eye-opening but it is narrated in such a way that there were laugh-out-load moments too. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I feel a little sad now it has come to an end. I will be watching for more of Adiga’s work in the future.

This book was in my Top 10 of books read in 2009 (out of the 99 that I completed).

 

Book Review: The Book Theif by Markus Zusak December 11, 2009

Filed under: Historical,Markus Zusak,Young Adult — The Book Whisperer @ 9:31 pm
The Book Theif by Markus Zusak

I had seen this in book shops for months and had picked it up and put it down again so many times that I finally decided to give it ago based on so many positive reviews I had seen. I’m so glad I did. For the 3 days it took me to read it I was immersed in the life of a young German girl during World War 2 and although the book prepares the reader almost from the beginning for what is going to happen I wasn’t prepared for the ending to pack such an emotional punch.

The book itself is narrated by Death (not the Grim Reaper image that most of us have, but a figure who roams the world collecting the souls of the newly departed and gently taking them away with him.) Death tells the story of Liesel, a young girl who has been placed with foster parents in a poor part of Munich and we follow her story throughout the war. We are told from the start that most of the characters we meet will die but because we spend so long with them and become so involved in their lives, it doesn’t make it any less shocking by the end of the book.

This book is brilliant in the way that it manages to avoid the gory detials of war but involves us in the day to day lives of some of those who lived through it. It is so important that we never forget what happened during that time and that there were so many wonderful, selfless people out there that were prepared to help others.

I highly recommend this book and I’m sure it is one that will stay with me for a long time.

 

Book Review: Evermore (The Immortals) by Alyson Noel December 11, 2009

Filed under: Alyson Noel,Paranormal,Young Adult — The Book Whisperer @ 9:26 pm

Evermore: The Immortals by Alyson NoelAlthough I am not a young adult (and haven’t been for far longer than I care to remember) I really did enjoy this book. Ever Bloom has survived a car accident that kills her whole family, including the dog and she is the only surviving member. When she awakes she is able to read peoples minds, know their entire life story, see their auras and not only that but her younger sister, Riley, who was killed in the accident is still very much around. Enter Damen, a drop-dead-gorgeous boy who joins her new school (after she is whisked off to live with her Aunty in California) who starts leaving her red tulips everywhere and confesses that he is an “immortal”.

When I first opened it I was determined not to make the obvious Twilight comparissons but I’m afraid that they just leaped off the page at me and I feel unable to avoid them: High school students, a girl with hardly any friends and wanting to be left alone, mysterious and gorgeous boy who can move at the speed of light, knows his school-work off by heart without even doing homework etc and never eats anything. That said, that’s where the comparissons end. The love story between Ever and Damen isn’t even close to that of Bella and Edward. There was no real “falling in love” or the romance of Twilight. In fact, some of the narrative felt very clumsy and verged on ridiculous.

That said, I still couldn’t put it down. I read it in less than a day and was glued to the pages. Ever’s sister, Riley, was a wonderful character and gave some great light relief. It says in the author interview at the end of the book that Riley is to get her own series soon – I shall be looking out for that, as I will the next 5 books in this series.

 

Book Review: On the Street where you Live by Mary Higgins Clark December 11, 2009

Filed under: Comfort Reading,Crime/Mystery/Thriller,Mary Higgins Clark — The Book Whisperer @ 2:54 pm
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This was the perfect good ole-fashioned whodunnit to read while being wrapped up in the front of the fire poorly. I am pretty new to Mary Higgins Clark but I now know that she can be completely and utterly relied on for comfort reading.
Emily Graham moves in to her ansestoral home in Spring Lake, NJ knowing that over 100 years ago a family member was murdered in that very town. In the following years, two more of her ancestors friends were also murdered and the town now appears to have a copycat murdered over a century later with young girls disappearing on the same dates. The last date that fits with the older crimes is less than a week ago so there is a race against time to find the perpertrator before he strikes again.
As with all MHG’s books, there are suspects aplently and you soon learn that, true to form, it could be anyone of them. I love the fact that her books have no gratuitous gore in them, just an old- fashioned whodunnit. I enjoy her books in the same way that I enjoy Agatha Christie’s; you know what you’re getting and can rely on them.

 

 

Book Review: Shiver by Maggie Shiefvater December 11, 2009

Filed under: Comfort Reading,Maggie Stiefvater,Paranormal,Young Adult — The Book Whisperer @ 1:48 pm
 Grace was attacked by a pack of wolves when she was eleven years old. She was dragged from her back garden which back onto Boundry Woods. But she didn’t struggle or cry even though she could see her own blood in the snow: instead what she remembers about that day is the wolf who saved her. The wolf with the yellow eyes who looked right at her and dragged the other wolves off her.
Over the next six years, Grace becomes obssessed with the wolves in Mercy Falls, where she lives. But it’s the one with the yellow eyes who she seeks out. On the occasions when he’s appeared at the edge of her garden they watch each other, waiting. One day, a local boy from her school is attacked by wolves and dies and the town is in uproar and a party of men go hunting the wolves in the woods. When Grace returns home she finds a naked boy about her age on her porch who has been shot. She takes him inside and recognises him instantly – the yellow eyes, Sam.

What follows is a love story between two people who have “known” each other for years. It’s simple, tender and subtle. They are drawn together and can’t be apart, but there is something in their way – whenever it gets cold, Sam changes back into a wolf and this year there is a race against time to stop him changing as Sam thinks it may be his last year as a human.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I can absolutely see how it would appeal to teenagers but I think it’s a good one for adults too. It’s touching and tender. I am looking forward to reading LINGER, the next in the series when it’s out.

 

 
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